Reaching Hearts Through Music and Words

Birthdays

March 2011 – Arrow’s first week of life outside the womb – I am 22 years old.

Arrow Truth Goddard….”you named him what??” Yes Arrow, his name is Arrow!! 🙂

Our strong Arrow turns 6 today!

Happy Birthday to our precious little man!

Arrow is physically strong yet kind and caring. He’s not afraid to kiss his mum and play babies with his little sisters. He’s as tough as nails and has still never needed to see a doctor. He is our warrior, strong willed and stubborn yet loving and tender. He’s serious and doesn’t always see the funny side,yet we can still make him laugh. We love him dearly and our family wouldn’t be complete without our Arrow.
Let me share with you his story which was posted on my old original blog (The Heart Of Our Home) – here is is again for you in case you missed it.

I fell pregnant with Arrow when our first bub Francis was around 8 months old. We were VERY excited to be expecting again, and we prayed and prayed for this baby after suffering a miscarriage only 3 months earlier. Right from the start I knew this baby was strong, though. I got through the first trimester with the usual morning sickness. Constant nausea but no vomiting. By 16 weeks I felt fantastic and we began planning a natural birth. I wanted more than anything to birth this baby into the world as naturally as possibly. This was the first birth that we really planned properly. I read many books on natural birthing, and God worked on my heart and helped to overcome my fears. I have ALWAYS had a terrifying fear of giving birth – especially without an epidural. And God gently worked on me and we did it! Would I do a natural birth again? Yes I would. Did it hurt? YES it did. But do I need to be afraid? NO I don’t. God designed women’s bodies to give birth, and I did it!! It was such a massive moment of transformation in my life.
Later in my pregnancy I couldn’t get away from the scripture in Psalm 127

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.

God gave me a strong revelation about children that I believe is very different from the world’s thinking of children. Our children are VERY important.

From this moment on I decided that I would dedicate my life to raising children for the Lord. With full support from my husband. I decided that nothing would come in the way, no job, no career, no ministry would be more important to me than raising my family in the best way that God shows me.

This is why we named our son Arrow.

He is our Arrow, our weapon of defense against our enemies. He is our reward and gift from God. We are very blessed.

His middle name is ‘Truth.’ This stands for the truth of God’s word coming to pass as we birth our Arrow into the world. We dedicated our son completely to the Lord.

We didn’t know if we were having a boy or a girl until after the birth, but during my later stages of pregnancy we had only picked one name – Arrow – I couldn’t even think of any girls names. God knew though, that we were having a son and he placed him in our womb for a special reason.

I was very over due – 2 weeks and 2 days in fact, before I finally gave in to the doctors and came into the hospital to be induced. Everyone thought I was crazy waiting for so long past my due date, but I knew in my heart that my baby needed more time.

The doctor broke my waters, and proclaimed that my baby has a head full of hair!! Wow, we were very excited, yet nervous for what was ahead of us.

The contractions came on steady all morning and Luke and I walked around and around the hospital grounds. I had a really strong contraction right in front of the waiting room of the medical clinic. I grabbed Luke by the scruff of his shirt and leaned over him, clamped my eyes shut and breathed deeply. “Okay, we need to go back into our room NOW.” So back inside we went, where we spent the entire length of our labour alone in our hospital room. We hardly saw a midwife and no doctors were in sight. I was doing quite well up until the last couple of hours of labour where I started to lose confidence. I sat on the birthing ball the entire time I was going through transition labour. Luke sat behind me, rubbing my back and praying. I began moaning like a cow, I couldn’t help it – I had to let the noise out, it was the only way I could cope. I was sweating, feeling sick & light-headed. I was fanning myself profusely with my orange pregnancy record book. My body was so exhausted that I almost dropped of to sleep sitting up between contractions. (I had no idea that I was probably fully dilated and ready to push for a while but I just kept sitting there on that ball!)

In agony I proclaimed to Luke that I had had enough and was going to see if the heat of a shower would help with the pain. Luke helped me into the shower. I was still moaning, and I stamped my feet in the water. I felt weird, I can’t explain it, but I had an overwhelming urge that …something…was about to fall out of my body. (I later discovered that that something was indeed a baby!) Luke pressed the button to call the midwife and she comes into the shower cubicle.

Midwife: “What’s the matter?”

Me: “I think it’s coming out!!”

Midwife: “Get out of the shower..”

Me: “Noooo”

Midwife: “You have to hop out now”

Me: “NOOOOO”

Midwife: “The baby is coming out and I’m not ready to catch it while you are standing in the shower, so hop out NOW”

Still moaning, but much louder now; I’m helped into a wheel chair and ran into the delivery room.

The midwife wants me to get up on the bed but I feel the baby literally dropping inside of me and I gag and drop to my knees on the floor.

In this moment I completely panicked, I looked in despair at my pale husband and yelped in a quiet voice: “Luke, help me!”

Everything else is pretty much a blur to me. I can remember the midwife telling me that I couldn’t give birth on the floor and she pulled out a birthing stool, which I sat on with Luke behind me.

Arrow shot out of me on that stool with such great force, I didn’t even push. He was living up to his name already.
He was out in – 2-3 minutes.I had a 2nd degree tear!

He was my biggest baby yet: 8lbs, 5oz,

Born 7:34pm on the 21st March 2011.

We were overjoyed. I needed rest, Arrow breastfed well and I showered and we all snuggled up together in our room exhausted, yet deeply satisfied.

6 years old now!

Our first sunflower and our Arrow

We are so glad he is a part of our family!

Blessings, Peta

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The youngest member of the Goddard crew is now 6 months old! Willow is doing really well. She is still breast feeding, but I top her up with formula about once a day because my milk supply goes up and down. She just started rolling around the floor, which is getting tricky because we have such a tiny lounge room. She rolled right off the little mat onto the floor boards and hit her head today! I’ll have to put her in the girls bedroom to play instead which has carpet. She still wakes about once a night for a feed but she goes through stages of sleeping right through. I’ve given her a little bit of banana, but she spat it out. I’ll gradually give her more solid foods over the next few months. She is so precious, I can’t imagine our lives without her now.

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Wow our first born son turned seven last week! Francis is growing into one unique boy. He is super smart and his brain is mathematical yet also creative. We are overjoyed that he has began a personal faith in the Lord and has decided to follow Jesus. We gave him his first Bible because his reading is very advanced for his age. He has been reading a chapter every night in bed before lights out.

He really wanted to climb up the worlds biggest rocking horse for his birthday so we had a picnic there today and he bravely climbed to the top with his daddy.

Francis is a happy boy and is patient with his younger siblings; he reads them books – even helps Arrow with his school work. He loves to lead and be in charge and in control of everything. Everything he builds with LEGO must be symmetrical. His favourite things are playing piano, reading, LEGO, transformers, writing and drawing diagrams of buildings and gardens.

We are loving seeing his unique personality bubble forth! Enjoy this video of him that he asked Luke to make, he loves teaching people how things are made.

Happy Birthday Francis!

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Holly turned 2 today. How happy we are to have Holly in our lives! I fell pregnant with Holly after we lost a baby to miscarriage at 12 weeks along. So I guess this makes Holly a ‘rainbow baby.’ Straight after our miscarriage we moved twice within a 3 month period and for the next year experienced the toughest financial time we have ever been through. All this combined with morning sickness of a new pregnancy left me with quite severe antenatal depression throughout my entire pregnancy.

Holly’s birth was very straight forward. The Lord knew exactly what I needed. I birthed Holly without pain (thanks to an epidural) and the following months after she was born God began restoring the joy within my spirit. That’s why her middle name is Joy. She was the most placid sweet little baby. She slept well for the first year of her life and rarely cried. I called her my angel baby. Her toddler antics make us laugh and laugh and she is so crazy and funny, we love her to bits. She loves her little sister Willow SO much and is still learning to be gentle. She was also born on my late grandma, Audrey’s, birthday. So we gave her the middle name Audrey also. Holly is my 4th baby and second born daughter.

Holly’s spent her birthday opening gifts, a little bike, a dolly, a block game and some new clothes and pjs. She went to church and we found out that daddy who was going to work in the afternoon was going to be able to be home with us after all. So Holly had a ride on the back of Savannah’s bike after lunch, then back inside for a big screen movie on our projector and popcorn. The day finished with birthday cake in her PJs.

We love you miss Holly, Happy Birthday!

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Our lovely daughter Savannah turned 4 last Saturday! Savannah is our third child and first born daughter. She is absolutely delightful! She turns heads everywhere when we are out and about and every second person stops to comment on her beautiful head full of strawberry blond ringlets! She has a spring in her step and enters every room singing. Savannah is a delight to have in our home as she has a compassionate heart. She is the one who wants to care for everyone and everything. She loves babies and animals and flowers. She is always on the look out for someone in our home who has a need. Just tonight when I was feeding baby Willow she came into the lounge with huge grin carrying a glass of water for me. She then gave me a hug and kissed my cheek and says “do you know why I kissed you? It’s because I love you.” Awe she just melts my heart.

I always let the birthday person choose what we have for tea on their special day and Savannah’s request was quinoa and brussels sprouts. Last year she said salmon! She is the healthiest eater in the house. What a blessing she is to us.

Happy Birthday Savannah!

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We celebrated Arrow’s 5th birthday this week. Arrow is our second born child and second born son. He is easy going and quiet and and his pleasant personality makes him a delight to live with. He is still healthy and robust, 5 years old and never seen a doctor for anything other than a few routine check ups. Arrow loves transformers, LEGO men, duplo, teddies, pumpkin soup, spaghetti, doing puzzles, and riding his bike to the playground with his family. He loves his little sisters and can be found playing imaginary games for most of the day with Savannah his ‘twin.’ (They are 16 months apart in age and I’ve been asked before when I’m down with street if they are twins!). He is beginning to show maturity as he is now doing some jobs around the house for me like emptying the compost bucket, making his bed, putting his clothes away and tiding up his toys. He loves homeschooling and is really thriving learning in a relaxed home environment. He is a blessing to have in the Goddard house and I feel privileged to call him my son.